1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a chip-component structure and method of producing the same, the chip-component structure including a monolithic ceramic capacitor and an interposer for use in mounting the monolithic ceramic capacitor on a circuit board.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today, chip-components, in particular, small monolithic ceramic capacitors are widely used in mobile terminal devices, such as cellular phones. A monolithic ceramic capacitor includes a substantially rectangular main body, in which internal electrodes and ceramic layers are alternately stacked, and external electrodes on opposite ends of the main body.
Typically, as illustrated in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 8-55752, a monolithic ceramic capacitor is electrically physically connected to a circuit board in a mobile terminal by bonding of mounting lands of the circuit board and external electrodes of the monolithic ceramic capacitor using a bonding agent, such as solder, the external electrodes being directly placed on the mounting lands.
Unfortunately, a monolithic ceramic capacitor may suffer from mechanical distortion caused by a change in a voltage applied to the monolithic ceramic capacitor. Such distortion is transmitted to a circuit board, and the circuit board vibrates. If the circuit board vibrates, a vibrating sound that people can hear is produced.
One example of a structure that addresses this issue is an electronic device described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-134430. In this configuration, a monolithic ceramic capacitor is not directly mounted on mounting lands and an interposer made of an insulating substrate is used. The interposer includes upper electrodes and lower electrodes, the upper electrodes are bonded to the monolithic ceramic capacitor, and the lower electrodes are bonded to mounting electrodes of the circuit board. The upper electrodes are electrically connected to the respective lower electrode with respective via holes passing through the interposer.
Unfortunately, the electronic device described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-134430 uses a special structure in which the direction of the arrangement of the lower electrodes of the interposer and the direction of the arrangement of the upper electrodes, that is, the direction of the arrangement of the external electrodes of the monolithic ceramic capacitor and the direction of the arrangement of the mounting electrodes of the interposer to the circuit board are crossed. Accordingly, when the monolithic ceramic capacitor is directly mounted on the circuit board and a vibration sound occurs, if an interposer is used, as illustrated in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-134430, changing land patterns or other suitable changing is required. The changing of land patterns is difficult in a current circuit board which demands high-density packaging. Thus, easier structural designing and mounting are needed.
Typically, an interposer is produced by cutting a stack of a substrate on which electrodes are disposed and a monolithic ceramic capacitor is mounted thereon. The cutting of the portion of the electrodes may cause a burr, which may be an obstruction to soldering for mounting the interposer, and reliability of connection between the interposer and the monolithic ceramic capacitor in mounting may decrease.